By Lunelle Arendse, Dietician, Heart Foundation of South Africa
We all want to be successful. We might not always admit it
to others or ourselves, but deep within we all want to be esteemed highly by
others.
While men are ferociously competing over who can earn the
biggest salary and drive the biggest car, women are searching for the fastest
and easiest way to become “The Thinnest of them All !“
The market is flooded with diets and programmes that promise
rapid weight loss in a very short period of time with little or no effort. These
include the so called “Heart Foundation” diets which the Heart Foundation of
South Africa does not endorse as they are nutritionally inadequate. Common to
all these diets is the promise of rapid weight loss in a very short period of
time (three 14 day cycles); they provide very little energy; are usually void or
very low in carbohydrates (no bread, pasta, rice, potatoes) which is the body’s
main energy source; offer unusual options like ice-cream as an integral part of
a meal; very few dairy products are permissible and these might even be
completely excluded; a variety of vegetables are allowed but all the starchy
vegetables (pumpkin and family, corn, peas, sweet potato) are excluded; fruit is
limited to 2 or 3 options and often bananas are forbidden. The meal plans are
restricted to only 3 meals per day and snacking between meals is considered a
deadly sin. The basis on which these diets draw their success is that they
provide very little energy and push our bodies into a state of disguised
fasting.
It cannot be denied that these diets actually do bring about
rapid weight loss but lets see what actually happens to the body when submitted
to such radical deprivation of energy.
The body is always busy expending energy to maintain all
processes of life and thus needs to refuel periodically. During the event of
energy deprivation glucose stored in the liver as glycogen and fatty acids from
the body’s fat stores, flow into cells to fuel bodily functions. Once the
glucose stores are depleted, the resulting low blood glucose concentration
signals further fat breakdown for energy production. All body cells, except for
brain cells, are dependant on fatty acids for fuel. Again the body finds a
solution by breaking down body protein to produce glucose and if this is not
sufficient it’s forced to produce ketone bodies, which serve as fuel for the
brain.
Ketosis causes loss of appetite, which explains why many of
those on such low calorie diets often report that they are actually not hungry
after a few days of following the diet. This stage is also characterised by a
metallic odour on your breath.
While the body is shifting to the use of ketone bodies, it
simultaneously reduces its energy output resulting in a slow metabolic rate.
Contrary to what most people believe, weight loss by means of energy deprivation
may be quite dramatic but this is more due to the loss of lean body mass (muscle
mass) and water - fat loss may not be that significant. The implication of this
is that you might be thinner but you also might end up being flabby. You may
also experience dry or flaky skin, brittle hair, intense tiredness, bad breath,
lowered body temperature, and a reduced resistance to disease - not really the
picture of health, beauty and success that you envisioned is it?
Clearly going on a low energy diet involves much more
co-operation and submission from the body than one would think, and a sad, harsh
reality of life is that even after the facts have been laid down, for many the
obsession to conform to the Western ideal of beauty and success will be greater
than the concern for optimal health.
Unhealthy eating and lifestyle habits are not the result of
some or other cataclysmic event, but are established over years and therefore
undoing them will take time. Quick fix diet remains an oxymoron.
So after all has been said and done, again we return to the universal rules of
well-being - follow a healthy lifestyle, exercise regularly and eat a balanced
diet. Your heart will love you for it!
